WotC James Wyatt is on the Dungeons & Dragons Team Again

[Scribe]

While that doesn’t mean that, sure, the 4e tiefling is fantastic and way beyond worth keeping, except that the 5e art tends to be better for them, because it toned down the horns and face spines and all that and got rid of the butt foreheads.

I liked the art for the Tiefling in Rime of the Frost Maiden. I cant think of a single other 4e/5e Tiefling that I wish was toned down, a ton.

 

[overgeeked]

Reviewing Wyatt's work... he's done a lot of stuff on D&D going back to 2001, but his largest contributions were in the 4E era. He was part of the core development team that created 4E, and played a big role in the sweeping overhaul of D&D lore that produced the World Axis cosmology (among other things).

I had mixed feelings about 4E mechanically, but there were a number of things it did well that I wish 5E did a little better. And on the lore front, I consider 4E to be an unqualified success--ironic, given that one of the knocks against 4E was how it disconnected lore from mechanics! They created this amazing evocative world (far better than the Great Wheel IMO), and then they put it into a system that held it at arm's length and treated it as disposable flavor text.

I'd love to see all that 4E lore revived and given a 5E treatment, perhaps as a stand-alone setting book. That probably isn't what Wyatt is working on, but if it is, I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

Yeah, I loved everything about 4E except for how it actually played at the table. The big four for me would be the Points of Light setting (including the World Axis), finally solving LFQW, non-combat ritual spells, and the Swordmage.

 

[overgeeked]

Man I love the 4e lore. It was one of the things that brought me back to D&D. If he can do this for 5e, I would be happy.

Same. I would love to see a Nentir Vale / Points of Light setting book using the World Axis.

 

[Aldarc]

Absolutely, I ignore everything post 3.5 for Tiefling. Doesnt mean the concept as of 4e was worth keeping.

Likewise your personal preference for pre-4e tielflings doesn't mean that the new one isn't worth keeping as a lot of us like and prefer the new tieflings as they are.

Same. I would love to see a Nentir Vale / Points of Light setting book using the World Axis.

Agreed, and I would want Rich Baker, James Wyatt, and Chris Perkins on this project.

 

[Scribe]

Likewise your personal preference for pre-4e tielflings doesn't mean that the new one isn't worth keeping as a lot of us like and prefer the new tieflings as they are.

Thankfully they have heard from enough of us to back out of the change and give us both options to keep us happy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As originally presented in Planescape there is a huge variety of different appearances in tieflings. There was even a table to roll on for horns, tails, wings, claws, hooves etc. So as far as I'm concerned the only one true tiefling is they all look different.

 

[Aldarc]

Thankfully they have heard from enough of us to back out of the change and give us both options to keep us happy.

Are you talking about the SCAG options?

As originally presented in Planescape there is a huge variety of different appearances in tieflings. There was even a table to roll on for horns, tails, wings, claws, hooves etc. So as far as I'm concerned the only one true tiefling is they all look different.

D&D is not the same as "originally presented." Things change.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I find the homogenisation complain of tiefling odd as according to the list they always look generically fiend-like, perhaps I would see it if the devils, demons and the yugiloths did not largely look all that different from each other and have similar aesthetics the planes need an overhaul before your desire makes sense.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

D&D is not the same as "originally presented." Things change.

Rules change, presentation is up to the DM.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

My view is different. I think the fixation on endless editions in role-playing games exhausts the brand at a certain point. There is certainly a period where the game can be improved, but at a certain point, the lack of stability of what actually constitutes the game will catch up and undermine the game and, in the case of D&D, the community. Now, if an update could be done that would not require everything (Monster Manual, all of the adventure paths, the campaign settings, the supplements, etc.) to be updated for a new edition, I would feel different, but at this point, I think there is far too much to gain for the game designers to take the game and the storylines in directions it has never been before, rather than try to reiterate the game itself yet again. I see no reason why the game could not continue as it is for years and years, there is a vast amount of imaginative terrain that has not been touched.

Not to mention, I would love to see Wizards of the Coast publish different role-playing games as well.

I expect high backwards compability.
I think it should be more a 1e to 2e shift or 3e to 3.5 shift. Not a bigger upgrade.

Some cleaning up of the PHB mainly.

As you can see here at enworld: there is a desire to clean up the game. It would be fatal to ignore it.
But as you said: it might also be fatal to stray too much away from 5e.

It is probably an option to do an ADnD branch. But this also needs to be done carefully.